


Hanging By A Moment

by Frumpologist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Avoidance, F/M, HEA, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frumpologist/pseuds/Frumpologist
Summary: Almost two years after the war, Harry Potter is living a quiet, studious life at Cardiff. His world is rocked when Hermione Granger shows up at his dorm room door.





	Hanging By A Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for Harmony & Co.’s Lyric Llama challenge, where Llama Del Ray provides a randomized lyric prompt and authors get to interpret the lyric separate from the song. This beast was only supposed to be a couple hundred words. Whoops. 
> 
> Prompt: “I'm falling even more in love with you, Letting go of all I've held onto, I'm standing here until you make me move, I'm hanging by a moment here with you” Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. It’s a sad life.

Everyone expected the defeat of Voldemort to be enough. It wasn’t. Not for Harry Potter. His entire life was tossed away on a fool’s errand. He was a lamb to the slaughter. A Hail Mary. A secret weapon.

He didn’t know what it was to love, not really. Everyone he thought he could love either died or reinforced the idea that love was manipulation. Feelings were malleable. The heart was a failing organ.

The first time Hermione kissed him, Harry panicked. Cold sweats. Rapid heartbeat. Shaky legs. His first thought was that she’d die, just like all the others. His second thought was that she needed something from him, just like all the rest.

So, he ran.

He ran because he didn’t want to face his best friend becoming one of them. He ran because it hurt too much to love her back.

Wales was safe. Cardiff was safe.

He integrated into muggle society almost seamlessly. Without the threat of death, Harry found that he was actually a pretty good student. He read books for pleasure and for knowledge and to quiet is chaotic mind. His professors commended him on his scores, they offered him special programs, high honors.

After nearly two years passed, the buzz of Voldemort and his Death Eaters dwindled. Harry Potter tried to forget. And it almost worked.

Until she showed up on drizzling afternoon.

A head of bushy curls, wide brown eyes, and a wand aimed right at the furrowed notch between his brows. The summer tan he remembered was gone and replaced with a pale pallor that made his stomach knot. The dark circles under her eyes, the subtle quake in her hands — he knew those signs. Knew them intimately, the same way he knew that pain and loss were lovers after war.

“Hermione.” Her name felt like a reaper on his tongue. Uncomfortable and hot, scolding the sensitive muscle and forcing him to snap his mouth shut to avoid the burn again.

The wand between his eyes dropped to her side. An airy huff separated them before her arms wound around his neck and pulled him in for an unsteady, crushing hug. He patted her on the back and glanced back and forth down the hall of his dorm. He expected to see a shock of red hair trailing after her.

No one else came.

When she finally pulled away, her eyes flashed like lightning.

“I’m so mad at you!” She fumbled to pocket her wand and then locked her gaze with his again. “If it wasn’t for Molly’s clock, we’d have no idea if you were even still alive!”

He swallowed around a thick knot. His hands shook as he carded them through his hair. Still, he couldn’t find words. Not an apology, not a declaration. Nothing came to his mind. Except, perhaps, that seeing her was both the best and worst part of his day.

“Do you know what today is?”

Her stare was like little needles prickling his skin. He shook his head; no, he tried not to pay too much attention to dates. It played with his head, made his recovery so much harder.

She scoffed and landed her fists onto her hips. So familiar, it tore at the walls he’d built around his mind. He missed her — but he couldn’t allow that to fester.

“It’s the nineteenth of September.” Her voice wavered and she snapped her eyes to the floor between them. “I thought maybe this year — maybe you’d—”

The urge to reach for her was so strong that he balled his hands into fists and stuffed them into his pockets. Guilt stabbed him straight into the sternum. It was hard to breathe. His vision wobbled. Seeing the hurt lining her eyes like a puddle wrenched something primal and protective inside of him.

But, he quashed it.

“Well, I suppose not, then,” she sniffed and wiped one finger at the corner of her eye. Her shoulders stiffened and he was reminded that war hardened them all. “I’ll just go. I’m sorry I came. Just — Harry, I’m sorry.”

She turned to leave and something inside him snapped. Harry reached forward and locked his hand around her elbow. He spun her around and met her wide eyes with his. It shocked him, too. He hadn’t touched anyone in so long — almost two years since the last time. The last time he felt anyone’s skin, felt the softness of lips, the thundering of a heart that wasn’t his own.

He crushed her to his body and held so tight that he thought he’d never let go. Her heartbeat slammed against his until their rhythms matched a heightened tempo. Her hands wiggled out from between their bodies and then wrapped around his rib cage like a vice.

She cried into his shirt, mumbling words he couldn’t make out and didn’t dare try to decipher. He held her there and he breathed in the vanilla of her hair and the salty smell of rain that clung to her clothes. Her warmth surprised him; she was like a furnace. Sweat broke out along his hairline, but he refused to let her go.

Love didn’t come easy to him. Touching someone niggled something inside of him that screamed to let go. Developing feelings always came hard and slow and he taught himself how to ignore those rushes of hormones. He couldn’t possibly allow himself to care, not anymore. It came with too high a price —his mental health, his sanity.

But —there was the ‘but’ he so desperately tried to keep at bay.

Hermione Granger and her petite frame wrapped up in his arms felt right.

It felt like home.

And, despite that he was scared of what it meant, he still held tight and firm and squeezed a little too hard for fear that she’d let go.

Once the dam was busted down, years of pent up emotion flooded out.

He shook. He stumbled. He struggled to catch his breath.

When her body pulled back and her eyes found his, he was like the ground rushing up to meet him as he flew through the sky. His stomach swooped. His brain sizzled. Things he refused to feel for so long encased him and it was terrifying.

It must have shown on his face, because her gaze softened. She lifted her hand up to his cheek and cupped it gently.

“Oh, Harry.” She swiped her thumb over his cheek and he was surprised to feel wetness trail along its path. “I’m so sorry that I left you for so long.”

The words hit him in the gut and something inside of him roars at her words. _He_ left. It was his choice, not hers. He ran, he hid away like a coward and refused to show his face. Her apologies incited something fierce inside of him and he grabbed her arms, perhaps a bit too tight. She didn’t budge, though, just stared at him with those understanding doe eyes that he’d been lost in too many times before.

“You didn’t.” The first words he finally spoke to her were hissed through clenched molars. His jaw ticked and the muscle ached. “I couldn’t—”

Despite his failing voice, she smiled at him. That beautiful smile that sparked something warm inside of him so many years ago — even when her teeth were bucked and large — and now, regardless of the horrors they’d faced together, still sucker-punched him in the gut.

“You weren’t the only one, Harry.” Her touch grew softer still. “Ron left — said it was all too much after Fred.”

His stomach roiled. “Ron _left_ ? But— but, his _family_!”

A fresh wave of tears flooded her eyes. He patted down her hair, fingers became tangled in her curls.

“I can’t believe he’d just leave.” Harry shook his head while he tried to comfort her.

She peered up at him through those impossibly long lashes. “Can’t you? _You_ left.”

All of his remaining breath left him. When he spoke, it was through suffocating windpipes and a parched mouth. “Hermione, I can’t do this. I think you should go.”

Her mouth opened and then she shut it on a huff. The sadness that softened her features was replaced in a flash with fury. Her tiny hands planted themselves on his chest and shoved him backwards and into his flat. He stumbled over trainers and had to grab onto the wall to keep himself from tipping over completely. She didn’t stop, it didn’t faze her; Hermione matched him step for step like the wildest predator.

The lamenting tone of her voice was replaced with ferocity as she growled through her words.

“You think I should go? Really?” Her eyes narrowed and she swiped angrily at the tears that fell from her eyes. “I have been fighting trying to hunt you down for almost two years, Harry Potter. When we found out that you were at Cardiff, Molly begged me to come to you and I refused — _refused_ because I understood.”

Harry swallowed around hot, dry glass. “You’ve known where I am?”

He wasn’t sure if it stung that she hadn’t come for him, or if he was grateful that she knew well enough to stay away.

“Of course I have!” Hermione fumed and skirted around him. She surveyed his dorm with her hands firmly stationed on her hips. “You didn’t really cover your tracks very well and Cardiff’s student information is quite insecure.”

Something tugged at his lips. A familiar thing that he remembered from _before_. The more his lip twitched upward, the narrower Hermione’s eyes became.

“I’m not leaving.” Her eyes darted from his face to the door and back again. “You’ll have to magic me right out the door and learn an impossible locking charm, because I’m staying until you talk to me.”

“Hermione—” Harry stepped toward her, his fingers curled in the empty air like he was grasping for something no one could see. When her eyes followed the movement, he dropped it to his side. “I don’t use magic anymore.”

Whatever she was going to say, and he knew she was preparing something before he let that bomb drop, stopped dead in her throat. They stood in silence and stared at one another for an indeterminable amount of time. Classes were going to be in session soon; he could hear the thundering footsteps down the corridor.

He had to get to his physics class — but he was terrified of leaving Hermione behind again.

It hit him like a sack of bricks.

He didn’t want to leave her. Not again.

The realization should have been eye opening, joyful even. Instead, it was painful and tore something deep inside him. He broke down completely, and slid to the floor against the wall. He wrenched his glasses from his face and threw them across the room. Tears poured out silently as he pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that. The tears ran dry and he didn’t remove his hands from his eyes until he felt Hermione’s fingers wrapped around his wrists and gently encouraged him to pull away. Black spots marred his vision as he gulped for air into his lungs.

“Harry,” she whispered as she placed his glasses back into his face and ran her fingers through the hair that hung over his forehead. Her thumb caressed his cursed scar. “I know that the world is hard and that your lot wasn’t fair—”

He snorted and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d been running from and battling death since he was one year old. Unfair and hard didn’t do his life justice. Harry mumbled as much to her. She ignored his derision and pressed on in her very Hermione sort of way.

“But, I’ve tried doing this without you and—” she stole a breath and dropped her hands to his. “I can’t. I don’t want to. I love—”

“God, don’t.” The plea was out of him before she could finish, ripped from his lungs and desperate. “Please, Hermione, don’t say it.”

She grabbed his hands and wrapped their fingers together. Her head ducked until she caught his avoiding gaze.

“I love you,” she whispered harshly, which sounded less like the adoring sort of love he’d witnessed in the past; the fake kind that pretended to be love but had never been tarnished by strife and war. “I _love_ you.”

“Stop,” he begged her quietly, but she kept repeating her words until he finally snapped. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

Lights burst over their heads. The door rattled in its frame. Glass shattered somewhere in the distance. Hermione didn’t move a muscle while Harry panted and flexed his fingers in hers. He hadn’t had a bout of accidental magic since he’d blown up his Aunt Marge before third year. He was stunned and afraid and so very fucking tired that he found he couldn’t think straight.

“It’s okay, Harry,” she assured him sweetly, squeezing against the manic grip he had on her fingers. He didn’t loosen his hold and she didn’t force him to. “I’ve had some accidental magic, too. St. Mungo’s says that the ch-children in the war are displaying signs of trauma. For witches and wizards, trauma displays as accidental magic.”

In through his nose for four seconds, hold, out through pursed lips for six seconds. It was a mantra he’d learned in therapy to keep his anxiety at bay. To keep him from experiencing exactly that display of emotion. He could feel the puddle of sweat between their hands and the quake of his nerves aside her steadiness.

“I’ll clean up the glass, alright?” She tried to pry her fingers away from his, but he held tight. “Harry, it’s okay. This happened to me, it happened to Ginny, to George, to Ron, to Luna—”

“I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t.” The worry on her face stabbed him in the heart, but he pushed through it and grit his teeth. “It hurts to stay away, to be so far away. I — I’m doing well here, I’m adjusted and I’m — you’d be so proud of my scores at uni, Hermione. I don’t know how I’ve done it without you.”

When she smiled at him, his heart did a somersault.

“And I didn’t know how much I cared.” He places their joined hands on his forehead and speaks to her like a prayer. “I didn't want to — I _don’t_ want to. And then I saw you on my doorstep and—”

She tugged his hands down so she could look into his eyes and he was surprised to find an enormous smile on her face. That smile, his favorite smile, and as much as it hurt, it spread warmth through his body.

“And I wouldn’t leave?” The way her eyes sparkled was everything to him, and it coaxed a small smile onto his face. “Harry, it’s okay that you’re not okay. Frankly, neither am I. But—”

“But?” He dared not allow the growing feeling of excitement to fester. He could sense the shadow of disappointment lingering around it like an infection. He stole a deep breath and didn’t dare blink.

“I don’t want you to be not okay all on your own anymore.” The corner of her bottom lip pulled between her teeth and she nibbled at it. “Will you please let me be here for you?”

He watched the nerves dance behind her eyes. The subtle way she drew his hands closer to her body. The small breaths that hitched in her throat. God, he’s missed everything about the witch.

But, he couldn’t face England. He didn’t want to see the places that were ruined for him. The Ministry, Hogwarts, The Burrow, Grimmauld. The list was never ending. And he felt terrible about it somewhere he wouldn’t allow himself to access for too long, but he didn’t want to see the Weasleys — not yet.

“I don’t want to go back to England,” he spoke the words quickly and quietly as if Molly herself would apparate directly into his dorm and force a pie into his hands while chattering on about his poor life choices. “I like Cardiff. I’m staying here, I’m sorry.”

The last thing he expected was to see her eyes crinkle under the pressure of her smile. It was hard not to match its force.

“I’m not here to take you back to England, Harry.” She shimmied her body and reached into a sequined bag on her hip. He lamented the loss of her hands. “I’ve enrolled at uni. I have an appointment with the admittance office in half an hour.”

Time stopped. Cotton filled his ears. His chest rose and fell as he tried to breathe through the slamming of his heart.

“You what?” Were the only words he could force out.

She nodded her head quickly, the smile not budging from her face. “Whether you want me here or not, even if you’ll never speak to me again. My official first day is tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“And I would very much like it if you would give me a campus tour this evening,” she continued as if he wasn’t repeating her words. “I applied via post and I haven’t had a chance to actually check out the student life, so it’s quite perfect to have a friend already enrolled and I just thought—”

He didn’t know why he did it. He hadn’t planned on it. His entire body fought against it. But, his heart won out and his soul sang.

Their lips touched. Gently at first and then as fiercely as she’d forced her way back into his life. She made a noise and he swallowed it greedily. It was like coming up for air after drowning for years. When he finally pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers and grabbed her hands again.

“Okay.” Harry agreed to her demands. Whatever she wanted, he’d give her. To walk away from England, from the life she’d fought for, just for him — he’d do anything for her. “As long as you also allow me to take you to dinner. It’s your birthday, after all.”

And he was rewarded with that sinfully brilliant smile one more time. Only this time, instead of the pain he’d felt, his stomach swooped with excitement as he crashed his lips to hers one more time.

Classes be damned.


End file.
